


Unchained Melody

by merelypassingtime



Series: Meretricious Melodies [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Flagrant over use of song lyrics, M/M, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Post-Reichenbach, Suicide Attempt, The Empty House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-16 12:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11253009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelypassingtime/pseuds/merelypassingtime
Summary: Three years after the Fall Sherlock finally wraps up the last Moriarty's network, unfortunately it happens to be on the same night that John loses the will to live any longer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a small and light piece meant to apologize for Stand By Me. It did not stay small nor light, sorry.

_Oh, my love, my darling_   
_I've hungered for your touch_   
_A long, lonely time_   
_Time goes by so slowly_   
_And time can do so much_   
_Are you still mine?_   
_I need your love_   
_I need your love_   
_God speed your love to me_

 

It was the case Lestrade called him in on that finally made up his mind.

In the long years since Sherlock's death John had stayed in contact with Greg fairly regularly, sharing pints and bittersweet reminiscences of the world's only consulting detective. Sometimes when a case that was particularly odd or difficult cropped up he would call John into take a look at it. He was pretty sure it was more out of pity and misplaced guilt than it was for any insights he could provide but it did get him out of the flat for a while and gave him back at least a pale shade of the excitement that he had found at Sherlock's side. Besides, it was never as if he had anything better to do.

When Greg had texted him about this case he had been sitting alone in his flat, picking at a days old carton of lo mein and watching lurid documentaries about serial killers online. 

**Possible locked room murder/weaponless suicide on Park Lane. You up for it?**

John ate a couple more bites of his noodles and waited until the next ad cut into his video before texting back, after all it wouldn't do to look desperate. 

**Sure, I guess. Meet you there in 30.**

When he arrived he found the house wasn't actually a house so much as it was a small mansion. Its once white limestone walls discolored from years of London's pollution to a muddy brown but still boasting an embarrassment of frilly pillars and wrought iron balconies. Light streamed out of a multitude of large, arched windows illuminating the uniformed officers who surrounded the building to keep the milling crowd at bay. 

Obviously the press had gotten wind of the death and were taking a strong interest, John saw no least than four news vans already set up to broadcast, their attendant teams of anchors all jostling for the best positions in front of the police cordon. Pushing through the throng required determination and at one point the judicious application of John's combat skills. 

He accidentally ended up knocking over one especially oblivious cameraman. Suddenly finding himself on his bum on the ground must have quite stunned the older man, as he spent several seconds staring dumbly up at him as John mumbled apologies. It wasn't until John reach down a hand to help the man up that he moved at all, grasping John's hand firmly and pulling himself up with surprising ease for one so elderly, but still the silent stare continued.

John, unnerved by the intense regard, quickly looked back down at the ground where the man had fallen. He spotted the camera the man had been holding laying on the grass a couple of feet away, very much in danger of being trampled by the other members of the press who where completely ignoring them. Quickly he darted in to grab the expensive piece of equipment, narrowly saving it from being kicked. Handing it back to its owner with more apologies John was not expecting to have the camera jerked roughly from his hands. The man had recovered himself and without a word to John he stalked off with all the indignity of a scolded cat.

John shrugged it off the best he could, returning to his slog towards the house.

Several hours later he was back in his tiny bedsit in Kensington, tired and demoralized. The scene had been very unusual, a man who had made millions running an online gambling site had been found shot through the head in front of a closed window in a locked room. No gun was to be found in the room with him but the small caliber of the wound had lead the forensics team to conclude that most likely the shot had been from a revolver. 

John, with a depth of experience with bullet wounds no one there could match, had been able to point out that the entry wound was all wrong for a small, fast moving projectile and had been likely made by a larger bullet moving uncommonly slow. That knowledge had allowed him to find the small hole in the window pane where the bullet had hit with too little speed to shatter the glass entirely.

Greg had been all appreciation and thanks for the tip but John knew that the larger bullet would have been caught by the autopsy and really he had only saved the police a few hours of mystery. He was just as sure that had Sherlock been there he would have seen more, found another clue, led John on a merry chase though London, and caught the killer before the end of the night.

John dropped into the recliner in front of the room's only window and set to thinking about the facts of the case, trying to rearrange them into a new alignment the way he had seen Sherlock do so many times, but his mind just kept drifting back to the void Sherlock's suicide had left. It had never been more clear to him what the whole world had irrevocably lost when Sherlock jumped off that roof and just how woefully little he could ever do to fill that emptiness. He also realized just how tired he was of trying, of how little interest he had in living in the dull greyness of Sherlock's abstinence.

It was time to stop fighting he decided. Past time in fact.

Briefly he though about leaving a note for Greg or his sister, even going so far as to start one on the pad of scratch paper next to his chair, but in the end he had no idea what to say. He crumbled his pathetic effort and threw it on the floor in disgust knowing it would probably still be found and read but not having enough left in him to care. 

Decisively he stood, peeled off his too recognizable jacket in case Mycroft was still watching after all this time and threw it across the back of his chair before slipping out of his flat and out on to the empty streets of early morning.

His feet took him east towards the place it had all began, the place where it would all now end.


	2. Chapter 2

_Lonely rivers flow_   
_To the sea, to the sea_   
_To the open arms of the sea_   
_Lonely rivers sigh_   
_"Wait for me, wait for me"_   
_I'll be coming home, wait for me_

 

John running into him in front of the Adair house had been the height of bad luck, and Sherlock cursed silently but colorfully in his mind.

He was so close to catching Moran, so painfully close to having this whole three bloody year ordeal over with and John had to literally trip over him at the last minute. And although John did not seem to had seen through his disguise Sherlock was sure that there was no way Moran, already alerted to Sherlock being alive, would have missed the interlude. Now John was squarely in danger again, placed there again by Sherlock's carelessness letting his guard down in the shock of seeing John once again.

But, God, it had been good to see him. Even in the chaos of the news crowd, even with John looking so wasted and frail, Sherlock's heart had soared to grip his hand and feel the warmth and strength of him however fleetingly.

It had also given him an opening to take out Moran that he never would have dared take otherwise. He knew Moran would not be able to resist the urge to go after John, to fulfill Moriarty’s last order and to make Sherlock suffer. That would give him the opportunity to lay out a trap and wait for it to close around 'The Tiger.' He only wished that he dared to warn John but no, there was no predicting what John would do. Well, knowing that he was in danger he would no doubt run out to confront Moran head on, but he was not at all sure what John would do finding out Sherlock was alive.

Sherlock returned to his latest bolthole to change clothes, relieved to be able to put on his familiar coat and scarf and for the first time in years fully be himself and just himself. One way or another this was ending tonight and he would be damned if he ended it as anything but him.

He took a cab wanting to reach John's flat well before he did so he could take up a position in the empty house across the street. Observing John and scouting out his flat and work had been one of the first things Sherlock had done when he returned to London, a sentimental impulse the he now felt justified in.

The derelict row house had been perfectly situated for his needs, offering a good view of the only entrance into John's building and of the window to John's flat itself. He had spent hours here watching John putter around his bedsit, enough time to have gone to the effort of dragging a halfway comfortable wing-back chair here that he had found at the Oxfam. Now he perched on the edge of that chair, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers beneath his chin, weighing out Moran's most likely plans of attack, watching to make sure he didn't try to sneak into the building before John got home, but mostly just waiting for another glimpse of John.

When John arrived home around midnight Sherlock was relieved to see him walk unchallenged up the front steps and into the building. It had occurred to him in retrospect that Moran might try to grab John out of his cab and Sherlock would have been poorly positioned to do anything about it. Now that John was safely in his flat it was most likely that Moran would wait for John to go to sleep then break in to kidnap him with the intention of forcing Sherlock into a final confrontation. He just needed John to go to sleep.

Unfortunately for his patience, John had no plans to go immediately to his bed. Rather he took a seat in the chair closest to the window and assumed a thinking pose that was eerily and endearingly similar to Sherlock's and appeared to sink into deep thought. Sherlock sighed and prepared himself for a longer wait.

Somewhere deep in the night Sherlock's transport betrayed him, giving into several days of sleeplessness and tension and allowing the soothing act of watching John to lull him into a doze. When he startled awake John's flat was dark and a bulky shape in John's chair indicated that he must have turned out the lights before falling asleep in the chair. Moran might be even now creeping up through the building to get to John. 

Sherlock almost moved to stand before his brain caught back up to speed, processing the noise that had woken him. Behind him someone was pushing open the door to the room slowly but not quite slowly enough to prevent long neglected hinges from protesting. Sherlock concluded that whoever was creeping in was therefore either incompetent or sure that the house was empty. Either way the approach meant they would not likely be after him directly.

Instinct, honed to a sharp edge over the last couple of years, had him pulling his legs up against him chest, wrapping the dark folds of his coat around them as he pushed back further into the equally dark upholstery of chair. It would not fool a careful observer, but it might be enough for the one rushing in.

He was proven right when a large figure brushed right by the chair he was in without so much as a cursory glance, moving directly to the window. Even in the faint light Moran's strong profile was clear and Sherlock mentally berated himself. He had been so sure that Moran would kidnap John to lure him in that it had never crossed his mind that instead he would directly move to kill John and it should have. Moran was not Moriarty he was not here for the game itself, for a relief from his boredom. Rather he was a soldier, his priority would be to finish the job he had been given and Sherlock watched in mute horror as he set down the duffel bag he had carried into the room and began removing pieces of the specialty air rifle that was his hallmark.

With more haste than care Sherlock pulled his arm up inside his coat, fumbling for the phone in his jacket pocket. Unfortunately it was a burner phone he had picked up only the day before and he had to duck his head under the coat to pick out the right keys on the unfamiliar phone, his fingers maddeningly clumsy on the buttons. It took him maybe a minute that seemed like a year to tap out the briefest of messages to Mycroft, his original plan to text Lestrade to tempt and tease him out to make the arrest abandoned in the face of the danger to John. Still that minute proved to be too much, Moran was anything but unfamiliar with his gun and by the time Sherlock looked up he had it fully assembled and was crouched next to the window, lining up his shot.

Desperately, Sherlock launched himself from the chair just as Moran exhaled and began to squeeze the trigger. The awkward way he had his legs huddled beneath his coat robbed the leap of much of its force but he was still close enough to tangle his arms around the assassin’s neck just as the soft shushing sound of thousands of pounds per inch of compressed air propelling a slug toward John. 

Sherlock had no time to spare for an agonized hope that he had been in time to knock the barrel off track, even completely surprised Moran was a furious fighter and it required all the skill of his years of training in baritsu combined with a lucky initial grasp on the man's throat to allow Sherlock prevail in the fight. 

Only when he was sure that the man was unconscious and that he had been thoroughly bound by zip-ties did Sherlock allow panic at the thought of that single shot fired to seep back into his awareness, paralyzing him for a heartbeat before he frantically ran out of the room across the street and into John's building. 

When he reached the door to John's flat it was to find everything quiet inside. He tried the door handle and was not surprised to find it locked. Without anything like the patience and clarity of mind to pick the lock he took a step back and drove a hard kick at the knob. It was an old building and the door was regrettably solid but at the fifth or sixth kick he heard the frame around it begin to splinter, another kick and the door careened inwards to reveal a tiny and still eerily silent room.

He flicked on the switch by the door and was momentary blinded by the light, when he could see again his eye first found the small hole in one of the panes of the large window then followed its trajectory directly to the chair John had been sitting in. A chair that blessedly, baffling empty.

Sherlock felt a wave of relief run through him, followed quickly by puzzlement. The bedsit was undeniably empty and while it was entirely possible for John to have slipped out during his unplanned nap the question remained where could he go in the middle of the night. Pubs and shops were closed, the streets were empty, and he knew from his surveillance that John had no more friends now than he had when he lived in 221B. He supposed that John, never the most peaceful of sleepers, had just gone out to walk through the pre-dawn hush of London and would be back soon. It was the obvious, logical conclusion to reach. He also felt deep down that it was the wrong conclusion.

He stepped over to the window, looking down at the street in front of the building in a vain hope of seeing John returning innocently from a stroll but all he saw a plain van now parked across the way. For a moment he watched as it emptied a plethora of black clad operatives into the empty house, satisfied that Moran was well and truly dealt with before he turned back into the room to solve the mystery of the missing John.

As he turned a scrap of white underneath the coffee table caught his attention and he bent to pick up a crumbled sheet of paper. The simple words on it, scrawled in John's inelegant handwriting and half scratched out but still legible chilled his blood:

_I am sorry, I just can't do this anymore. I am not strong enough to continue on in a world so empty. Please forgive me and if you can understand that-_

It cut off there right in the middle of a line. 

For all he knew this piece of paper had been laying there for days or even weeks, the product of a different dark night and never reaching fruition but again his instincts screamed at him that of course this would be the way the universe would arrange things, that somewhere out there John was moving towards his end, if he hadn't found it already.

And Sherlock had no idea where to start looking so he could stop him.


	3. Chapter 3

Oh, my love, my darling  
I've hungered, for your touch  
A long, lonely time  
Time goes by so slowly  
And time can do so much  
Are you still mine?  
I need your love  
I need your love  
God speed your love to me

 

John had been sitting on the edge of the roof of St. Bart's for hours not because he had any doubt over his chosen course of action but because it had somehow seemed wrong to jump in the dark. 

He could not say why it was wrong but when he had arrived, forcing the surprisingly flimsy lock to get on the roof, he had stared down at the pavement below for a long time. It was nearly black with rain, the street lights dim and wavering points of illumination like stars in a night sky and John had been overtaken by the idea that if he jumped now he would never hit the ground he would just fall forever into that illusionary sky. It was an image he could not shake and it had kept him sitting there waiting for the morning.

Now the sky was growing brighter, he could see the people on the ground scuttling around like ants in the grey light of dawn. He wondered if he had looked so small and insignificant to Sherlock when it had been him standing up here in John's place. Maybe that was why John had not been enough to keep Sherlock from making this jump. Maybe he was just being Maudlin. Well, he thought, if there ever was a time to be a little Maudlin this would be it.

He stood up and stretched, somewhat stiff from the long time sitting in the cold damp, before climbing back up on the ledge. He waited a moment somehow expecting deep and profound thoughts to flood his mind or for his life to flash before his eyes or something. Really he should have known better, after all this was hardly the first time he had faced death. This time he wouldn't be begging to be allowed to live, this time he would use his imagination and the remainder of life to think of something clever.

He focused on his memories of Sherlock, dredging up a kaleidoscope of images of the lanky, lovely, endearing, infuriating man. Sherlock on the couch his back to the room in a sulk, Sherlock with his face alight at the start of a promising case, Sherlock melancholy written in every line of his lean frame as he stood in front of the window of 221B playing his violin, and a thousand other scenes. 

In a way it was like having his life flash before his eyes, the months he had spent with Sherlock had been the only time he had felt completely alive.

“Goodbye Sherlock.” he whispered into the softly falling rain, raising up his arms as if he could embrace the overcast sky and leaning forward.

The bang of the access door being flung open behind he didn't surprise him but he knew they were too late to reach him in time. What made him pause was the voice that rolled across the roof towards him like thunder, crying, “No, don't. John!”

It couldn't be. John knew it couldn't be that voice, and the part of his mind that itself sounded a lot like his dead flatmate pointed out that given his recent reminiscences and his emotionally compromised state it was only logical that his ears could be easily fooled. He knew that it would prove to be some random security guard with a particularly deep voice, but that didn't stop him from turning to look at the speaker even as he hated himself for the weakness.

Striding across the roof, coat flaring out dramatically behind him, was the unmistakable form of Sherlock Holmes. 

John stared at the apparition his mind reeling in shock and flooded with disbelief. But there was no denying that it was Sherlock. All the obvious things where there, the coat, the scarf, the cutting cheekbones, and the unruly hair but it was the eyes that convinced him that this was no grief inspired delusion. They were too full of panic and need to be a part of his imagination.

Conversationally, the levelness of his voice surprising even to himself, he said, “You are dead.”

The figure stopped a few paces away from him. “Not quite,” he replied with a hint of a smile, the worry never leaving those otherwise familiar grey eyes.

“Ah,” John said, at a loss for anything else he could say to that. Somewhere in the back of his mind emotions like anger and betrayal were fight for his attention but they were no match for the grey mist of shock that enveloped him.

For the first and last time in his life John fainted.

He regained consciousness slowly, sensations and thoughts creeping reluctantly back to him. The first thing he felt was wonder that he was there to feel anything at all considering he had been standing on the ledge of a roof when he fainted. The second thing he noticed was that his head seemed to be on a soft, warm pillow. It was a bit scratchy but the scent on it was immensely comforting. Less pleasant was the rain that seemed to be falling on his face. He stirred, trying to turn his head to avoid the moisture when the voice above his finally broke through the haze.

“John, oh God John I am so sorry. I had no idea you would take it so hard.”

“Sherlock? I thought... Were you dead? Am I dead?” he asked, blinking open his eyes to see Sherlock's face only a few inches over his own.

“No, you aren't dead. It was so close, I just barely managed to pull you back when you started falling. What where you thinking, idiot?!”

“Well, actually falling was exactly my plan.” John pointed out. He tried to pull himself to a sitting position only to have his head pushed back down on to what he now realized was Sherlock's lap. 

“No. No, you are never allowed to leave me.”

John began to speak, ready to retort over how unfair it was for Sherlock of all people to make such a demand, when another drop of moisture hit his forehead. For the first time he really looked at Sherlock's face, seeing the clear tracks of tears across the too pale skin.“Oh, Sherlock,” he said, reaching up to rest his palm against a gaunt cheek, wiping away the next tear with his thumb. “You didn't eat at all while you were dead, did you?”

For a split second Sherlock looked nonplussed, then a rusty chuckle escaped him. “Always a doctor, aren't you?”

“Always your doctor anyways, git.”

“You can hardly cast any stones about weight loss.”

“Yeah, well my best friend and the love of my life was dead. What is your excuse?”

“I'll have you know I was traveling through some very unsavory parts of Asia that are hardly known for their cuisine.” Then Sherlock really registered what John had said. “Wait, so you are saying that I am...” he started, but his genius brain seemed to grind to a halt there, his eyes locked on to something in the middle distance and his mouth going slack.

John seized the opportunity to run the tips of his fingers from where they were resting against Sherlock's cheek and tangle them into his soft curls, carding through them partly to assure himself that they weren't matted with blood, the skull beneath crushed as it had been the last time he saw it and partly for the pure joy of it.

After a couple of minutes of hair stroking while Sherlock continued to stare at nothing John began to worry. He was pretty sure Sherlock had not blinked in all that time. “That's getting a bit scary now.”

The sound of John's voice seemed to pull Sherlock back online at least slightly. Hesitantly he said, “So in fact you mean I'm...”

John nodded encouragingly, prompting, “... the love of my life.” as almost the same time Sherlock said, “...best friend.”

It was John's turn to be nonplussed, “Yeah, of course you are. Of course you are my best friend. I had thought you would be more surprised at the second part of that.”

“What? That I am the love of your life? But I have known that for years, nice of you to finally catch up.”

It was easy for John to pull his hand a little way away from the head it had been petting, just enough to deliver a light but sharp thump to that same head. “You prick, if you knew I loved you how could you leave me like you did.”

“I had to, I know that sounds horrible but it is the truth. You were in danger, you and Mrs Hudson and Lestrade and to protect you all I had to die. It was only afterward that it became clear to me how much I had lost when I left you behind. I am so sorry John.”

A part of John wanted to be angry, wanted to lash out and hurt the man who had hurt him, but looking up at the still tear stain face he had never imagined he would be able to see again it was a very small part. He settled for another thump to the back of Sherlock's head. “Prick, but I knew you were from the moment I met you, didn't I?” he said, moving again to sit up. “Now help me up, then you are going to buy me breakfast and, yes, you are eating too. While we are doing that you are going to very thoroughly explain to me just want the hell you were thinking.”

“Fine,” Sherlock said, trying to sound cross and grudging but not very convincingly. Between the two of them they got John sitting upright before Sherlock sprang lightly to his feet.

John glared up at him from the rooftop one hand rubbing at what felt like a large bruise forming on his left hip. “It is unfair for you to be so damned graceful when I feel like one huge contusion. What did you do, tackle me to the ground?”

“Well, you didn't leave me a lot of other options. I couldn't let you fall. After all, where would I be without my blogger?” 

Sherlock offered his hand and John took it, heaving himself up with only a small groan. Even after he was standing he didn't let go of the hand, instead he pulled the tall man in close to him, “Your blogger and the love of your life?” he asked.

“Yes, I guess there is that.” Sherlock admitted, his breath coming quicker as John pressed up against his chest, leaning his head upwards, and licking his lips. Sherlock tilted his head down toward those lips, only to stumble forward as John stepped away.

“Yeah, don't think we aren't going to talk about that too. But first, breakfast.”

“Bastard.” Sherlock said with a wry smile. It didn't look quite right on his haggard face but it looked infinitely better than anything John had seen for years.

“Takes one to know one. Now come on, love.” and with their hands still joined John began walking towards the door leading off the roof.

Behind them, unnoticed and unheeded, the sun broke through the grey cloud cover spilling golden over the city below.


End file.
